New Yorkers greeted the public unveiling of a new design by the architect David Childs for the skyscraper that will be built on the site of the World Trade Centre, the "Freedom Tower", with a mixture of trepidation and celebration. The building - set to be the world's tallest - will be 1,776ft (541m) tall to symbolise the year the US declared independence.

The new design, radically altered from the original blueprint by Daniel Libeskind in order to improve its safety and security, was better in almost every respect, said the New York Times. "Its lines are graceful and sleek, and its lithe crystalline form could even represent an improvement over the original design," agreed Newsday.

"All New Yorkers, and Americans in general, ever wanted from this whole process was a design that could be viewed with pride and without embarrassment. Now, it seems, we have that," said James Gardner in the New York Sun.

Others disagreed. In the NY Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff dismissed the design as "sombre, oppressive and clumsily conceived", and "the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world".

And, the paper's editorial noted, "many of the features that would have made that building environmentally and architecturally distinctive had been stripped away at the insistence of Larry Silverstein, the developer who [holds] the lease on the World Trade Centre." It was no wonder New Yorkers were sceptical: "We have seen so many designs, so many models. We know now, unhappily, that the final plans, whatever they are, will likely be hammered out in private."

It remained to be seen whether the design "will translate into a building that can actually be built", the New York Post agreed.

"Governor George Pataki must now get construction moving and keep it moving; no more setbacks, no more do-overs, no more confusion, no more failures," said the New York Daily News. "The Freedom Tower - a critical landmark for New York, the United States and the world - must rise on schedule and, even more crucially, the memorial for the 9/11 fallen must stay on pace. Such was the governor's promise; such is his bond."